


Taken

by Emilybells



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abduction, BAMF John, Gen, James Bond - Freeform, Kidnapping, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilybells/pseuds/Emilybells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock is abducted and held hostage, John embarks on a dangerous rescue mission 3,000 miles from home. (Pre-season 3.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The front porch seemed eerily quiet in comparison to the formal ball that was still in full swing only a little ways away. John Watson stepped outside and pulled back a suit sleeve to check the time. His watch was hard to make out in the dark, but pressing a button in its side backlit the screen. 2:02.

John half expected Sherlock to already be waiting for him. After all, he hadn’t even wanted to come in the first place and made a point of reminding John at least once every hour since they arrived that evening. The party was a celebration for some politician or another, and Mycroft insisted that his younger brother come and congratulate the family friend. John tagged along at the promise of meeting a handful of celebrities if he could coax Sherlock into showing up dressed accordingly.

With a sigh John settled down on the steps. He listened to crickets chirp for a couple moments before pulling a mobile from his blazer’s pocket and texting his flatmate.

What’s the holdup? –JW

After another minute or two he got a response: Something came up. I’ll let you know when I’m ready. –SH

The doctor reread this message twice before calling Sherlock. It was already well into the wee hours of the morning and Sherlock couldn’t have picked a less convenient time to change his mind about the social gathering. John almost didn’t expect Sherlock to pick up, and when he did his voice was difficult to hear over music, excited chatter, and other background noises.

John only caught a few words here and there - guest list, plotting, strange, and something about men in suits that didn’t belong. John pressed the mobile close up against his face and covered his other ear, but it did little to improve the situation.

“Sherlock? Sherlock, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say. Can you hear me? Sherlock?”

There was a loud static noise at the other end and John had to hold the mobile further away to keep from hurting his eardrums. After another half minute the thing went quiet and he recognized Sherlock’s voice, now entirely audible.

“Is this better? I shut myself in one of the private rooms upstairs.”

“Yes!” John exclaimed. “Yes, much! Ah, sorry, what were you just going on about? I’m afraid I didn’t catch… well, any of it.”

The detective almost sounded annoyed at this. “I suspected as much,” he replied. “Anyway, I can’t leave. Not yet.”

“Why the hell not? You don’t need Mycroft’s permission, do you?”

“You really didn’t pick up a single word, did you?” There was an exasperated sigh before Sherlock continued. “There are six, possibly more men here that don’t belong. Or if they do it’s because they’re here for reasons other than the concession stand. I snuck a peek at the guest list and the ones I was able to identify are all on there, but that proves nothing. I also suspect they’re working together, even though they all arrived separately and at different times. Quite clever on their part, but the shifty glances and short comments into an earpiece caused them to stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Okay, so what’s your point?” John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “If they haven’t done anything I don’t understand what there is to make a big deal over.”

“No, they haven’t done anything yet, but they’re going to! That’s what this has all been leading up to. I just need fifteen to twenty minutes to figure out what. Half hour at the most.”

“Sherlock. It’s late, I’m tired, and we’re going home. Now hurry up and meet me outside or so help me—”

Just then John heard a muffled conversation on the other line. It sounded like someone was talking to Sherlock, but perhaps the man’s finger was pressed over the mobile’s receiver or something. John waited for a moment, listening in as the second voice repeated whatever it was they said the first time.

“I said this room’s taken!” Sherlock shouted back loud enough for John to hear. “Probably that foreign couple from downstairs. They had just finished occupying this room when I came up. You’d think that a full hour were more than enough time to take care of whatever business was going on between them, but apparently not.”

John was about to reply, but before he could do so, there was a loud crashing noise from over the mobile’s speaker, as if someone were kicking down a door. The talking that followed on Sherlock’s end was easier to make out than before, but John had a difficult time registering what was going on.

“Do you mind?” Sherlock was saying. “What is it you gentlemen so desperately want, anyway? Hey! Hey - stop that! What are you—” A sort of rustling noise came through the mobile before Sherlock spoke again, his voice now louder, as if he were yelling into the speaker. “John! John, I need you to come and get—”

Although John was convinced that his friend was asking for help, he never got to hear Sherlock say it. Instead there was a thump from the other mobile having hit the floor, more rustling noises, a few snippets of a conversation that was in an entirely different language, and then silence.

“Sherlock?” John called into the receiver desperately. “Is everything alright over there? Sherlock!” He glanced down at his mobile’s screen and saw that the call was still connected, although from what it sounded like, Sherlock had just been escorted out of the room against his own will.

Without hanging up first, John immediately sprinted back inside and raced through the center of the ballroom, accidentally knocking into one lady and causing her to spill a bit of red wine down her perfectly white dress (which he somehow tried apologizing for without even slowing his pace).

John dashed up the stairwell and ran into the first room that he came across. Its door was swung wide open and John immediately spotted Sherlock’s mobile lying in the center of the vacant room with its screen lit up. Kneeling down beside it, John picked the mobile up and disconnected his call.

He then spent the following hour racing back and forth across the premises. Despite his best efforts, John never did find where Sherlock had disappeared to or a single guest who had seen him leave. Dismayed, John eventually gave up on his search and slumped down on the porch steps where he had started.

-x-

Still trying to remain hopeful, John took a cab home by himself that night. The next morning he slept in quite a bit and had all but forgotten that Sherlock wasn’t with him until he realized how disturbingly quiet the flat was. It was at this point that John really began to worry. He’d gotten halfway through a text before remembering that he still had Sherlock’s phone.

“Calm down, John, you’re probably just getting upset over nothing,” he muttered to himself while filling up a tea kettle. John paced up at down the kitchen several times. “He’s off on another case, that’s it! The man just loves theatrics, that’s all. That has to be it.”

The kettle let out a high-pitched whistle and John shut it off. The man then reached for a mug and began to fill it with a shaking hand. A bit of the hot water splashed up on this finger and John set the tea kettle down again in a hurry. “Shit!” he cried out, turning on the faucet to run cold water over the area.

The pain quickly subsided and John shut the water off again and dropped a tea bag into his cup. He hesitated for a moment, strumming his fingers along the countertop, before pulling out his mobile once more and dialing Mycroft.

“Ah! Um, hey, this is John. Uh, wonderful party. I… really enjoyed it. Quite a bit, actually. Ah, sorry to bother you this early, but I was just, um, wondering if you happened to have by any chance heard from your brother since last night or maybe, I don’t know, happen to have seen him leaving the party? Nothing’s wrong! I hope. Just… just curious, that’s all.”

Mycroft’s response came as a bit of a surprise to John. “No, I’m afraid I do not know the whereabouts of my brother, but I appreciate your concern. Now, if that’s all that you were calling about—”

“Then help me find him!” John interrupted. “Please. I don’t know where to start looking. Knowing him I shouldn’t stress out about it this much, but last night he was telling me about these… these guests who didn’t belong, and then there was shouting that I didn’t understand, and he even left his mobile sitting in the middle of the floor and still on, which is entirely unlike him! Now, I don’t like jumping to conclusions, but I’m starting to think that Sherlock may’ve been kidnapped last night. Mycroft? Are you even listening to me?”

The other line was silent for several seconds before Mycroft answered. “Don’t be ridiculous, John. I’m sure everything is fine. Goodbye.”

The call cut out and John stood there for a minute with his mouth ajar. Of course he already knew that the Holmes brothers didn’t get along well, but that was just insensitive. John took a deep breath and shoved the mobile back into his pocket. He then picked up the steaming mug of tea and relocated himself to his favorite armchair. John wasn’t even halfway done with the drink, however, when there was a knock at the door.

John was surprised to find Anthea facing across from him. Well, perhaps that wasn’t her real name, but it had been the fake one she’d given him well over a year ago and he wasn’t any closer to finding out the truth. Or having another go at asking her out. “Hello,” she smiled.

No questions necessary, John took his jacket off a nearby hook and pulled an arm through. “Yeah yeah, I know the drill,” he grunted and followed the woman out.

-x-

As he expected, Anthea dropped John off outside Mycroft’s office. The doctor was then escorted inside, where he found the elder Holmes brother staring wistfully out the window.

“We were just talking over the phone,” John cut in after a moment of awkward silence. “It’s a perfectly valid form of communication. If you had something to add to our previous discussion, there’s this convenient little redial button. Look, I’ll even show you.” John began fumbling around with his mobile.

“There are some things that cannot be expressed beyond direct contact,” Mycroft said without turning around. “And even fewer that can be said over a tapped line. I’m being watched, John. Phone lines, computer screens… If I lift a single finger they’ll hear about it one way or another.”

John squinted. “Who’s watching you?”

“I’m afraid the specifics of the situation as well as the motives of those involved must remain confidential,” Mycroft sighed. “But I can tell you that last night, Sherlock was abducted against his will.”

John’s spine straightened and he shouted, “What? Who—?”

“The people responsible are allied with certain influential leaders who are interested in furthering a political movement I have been doing my best to eradicate. They thought it pertinent to hold my baby brother’s safety over my head to ensure that I would not interfere.” Mycroft turned to look at John for the first time, and the man seemed to have aged ten years since the doctor last saw him. “However, elections are not for another month, and they are already mistreating him. They have sent me pictures, John. For motivation,” he spat. “And even then, if I play their idiotic game for four more weeks, there is nothing to guarantee that they will return Sherlock immediately or in one piece. They might just decide to stop feeding him out of boredom.”

“I can’t bloody believe this,” John said. “Why can’t you send out your cronies to kidnap him back?”

“As I already mentioned,” Mycroft muttered, sounding annoyed, “I am being watched. Any attempts to make use of my extensive connections will result in, and I quote, ‘one appendage taken off for each individual mobilized.’”

“They are either severely underestimating the number of people in your power or overestimating the number of Sherlock’s limbs.”

“I tend to agree.”

“But why are you telling me this?” John asked doubtfully. “I mean, don’t you think they’ll decide to hurt Sherlock because you brought me here?”

“Hardly,” Mycroft said. “You and I meet in my office often enough for this not to be too suspicious. Regardless, people are apt to misjudge your… abilities.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” John said.

“You should,” the taller man stated. “Honestly, John, did you imagine I would risk my brother’s safety if I weren’t sure? They will think nothing of one lonely doctor knowing his friend has gone missing. I am hoping this will be their downfall.”

“Wait, what?” John eyed Mycroft distrustfully. “Don’t tell me you expect me to solve your little political dispute for you? I’m not your personal mercenary, Mycroft.”

“No,” Mycroft said. “But I was under the impression you were my brother’s.”

He pulled out his mobile, opened a picture, and turned the screen for John to see. The photo was of some sort of dark basement-looking room, with one Sherlock Holmes squinting painfully up at the camera through a swollen eye. The left side of his face was dominated by bruises, and he had a small cut on his brow that was dribbling blood down the bridge of his nose. His belstaff coat and suit jacket were missing, and a pair of handcuffs were only just in frame behind him, binding the detective to some kind of pole.

“Okay,” John said. “So you want me to adventure off to find these dangerous thugs, take them all out by myself, and rescue Sherlock before they realize anything’s wrong, do you?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” John said. “Because I was going to do that anyway. Now, who the fuck am I going to murder?”

Mycroft moved to his desk and picked up a manila folder, thick with several documents. “I am glad you asked, because I had Anthea make a list,” he said.

-x-

“I’ve never been down here before,” John commented. He was currently trailing Mycroft into an underground portion of the building. The walls were white and lined with what looked like rows of school lockers, each labeled with a letter and 3-digit number.

“Few have,” answered Mycroft. “It used to be somewhat of a research facility, but has become solely a storage unit as of late. Not many venture inside, much less make use of its… features. But as I figured it, with an operation such as this, one ought to be armed appropriately.”

“I have my own gun.”

Mycroft smiled. “That’s cute. Now how about…” The man trailed off as he stepped in front of the lockers. He felt his hand across a few of them before selecting one and punching in a code. Mycroft then pulled open the locker and took out a briefcase, which he handed John, who stared back at him blankly. “You’re allowed to look inside, you know.”

John hesitated for a moment before taking a knee and unlatching the briefcase. Pulling open its lid, he found that inside was an entire pop-up arsenal, complete with three shelves of various guns, knives, and hand grenades.

“And you’re absolutely sure they’re going to let me through airport security with this?”

“Sherlock currently resides somewhere in Turkey, that much is obvious. Conveniently enough, I have a certain shipment flying out to Bulgaria as it is. I can get you onto that flight, and from there my people should be able to help you pass the border with little difficulty. But from that point on you will be on your own.”

John shut the case and took a deep breath. “Wow. I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie. This is exciting, isn’t it?”

Mycroft sighed. “Whatever it takes to motivate you. But remember, Dr. Watson: your number one concern during this mission is subtlety, and I cannot stress this enough. Sherlock’s safety depends upon you staying under their radar.”

“Right. Don’t get captured. Got it.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock had been right to suspect trouble from a particular group of men who did not belong at the party that night. He hadn’t, however, anticipated being knocked to the ground by four of them that were twice his size.

At the time of the assault Sherlock’s mobile fell from his hand and slid several feet out of his reach. Knowing that John was still on the other line and praying that he could hear him, Sherlock tried desperately to call out to his friend. Unfortunately, the consulting detective had little time to explain before a piece of thick duct tape was slapped over his mouth and then used to secure his wrists and ankles.

Jerking himself about with as much force as he could manage, Sherlock was helpless against his captors, who easily hoisted him above their heads and had him relocated to the inside of wooden chest that was waiting just outside the room. Sherlock fought to get back to his feet, but the lid shut over him and then there was a clicking noise, like a padlock clasping shut. The box was then lifted and carried downstairs, and even Sherlock was surprised that no one seemed to question this.

The man’s eyes widened at the sound of footsteps sprinting in the opposite direction. That had to have been John, hurrying back inside to see what was the matter. Sherlock let out a stream of muffled shouts and thrashed about in the tight space, but it was of no use; he could hardly be heard over a full orchestra set up nearby, much less the unnecessarily loud chatter coming from party guests. To his dismay the footsteps disappeared further up the stairwell.

Sherlock knew he had just exited the building when it suddenly grew several times quieter. The trunk was then quite literally thrown into the back of some kind of truck. His mind whirling in an attempt to make sense of it all, Sherlock listened as the back doors slammed shut. Less than a minute later the engine started up and the vehicle lept into motion.

Letting his thoughts drift away from piecing together the puzzle, Sherlock instead focused on where he was being taken. Shutting his eyes and concentrating, the detective made a mental note of every stoplight, every turn, even how far they had gone in any particular direction. Outside noises occasionally confirmed the GPS he’d drawn inside of his mind palace, such as the sound of a train going by or where the loudest shopping centers were located.

Using this method, Sherlock knew exactly when he and his kidnappers had left the city. The journey became silent from there, save a car passing in the opposite direction every so often, and this continued for approximately forty minutes. It was at this point that Sherlock began to detect the sound of a few planes taking off and landing from a little ways away. He tilted his head slightly as the car pulled into what he could only assume was an airfield.

It become apparent to the detective that he was more than likely going to be shipped out to some unknown location, far away from London and someplace John would most certainly not think to go looking for him. Sherlock shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and made a sort of peace with the fate he had to look forward to.

-x-

Sherlock must have fallen asleep on the plane, because the next thing he remembered was waking up to a blinding stream of sunlight. A shadow-encased figure was standing over him and holding open the lid to his wooden prison. The detective squinted into the light until it became easier to bear, at which point he could just make out the tops of sand and rust colored buildings towering over him, several leafless trees doing nothing to shade the plot of dirt he was lying on. Sherlock did not know where he was, but the heat alone easily ruled out quite a few possibilities.

Only then did Sherlock become aware of the man talking with at least one other. They were speaking in Turkish, which seemed to fit perfectly with what he could tell from his surroundings, and the conversation hinted to Sherlock that the incident had something to do with his brother’s political career stretching into countries where it didn’t belong. At the mention of Mycroft’s name Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

Of course Mycroft had something to do with this. Even if he weren’t responsible for the night’s events directly, Sherlock had little trouble convincing himself that Mycroft was still very much involved to some extent.

The second man revealed himself then, stepping forward to peer into the chest. Sherlock glared back. The other gentleman then reached forward and lifted Sherlock up by one arm. With the help of the first kidnapper they pulled him out of the box and more or less onto two feet, since Sherlock had difficulty balancing with both ankles still strapped together.

He could now see that there were actually seven men in total, all of which had changed into more casual attire since the night before. They continued to talk about him in Turkish - not very nice words, but Sherlock didn’t react. He pretended not to understand in hopes of this working in his favor in the long run.

Suddenly one of the criminals pinched at Sherlock’s ear. Instinctively, Sherlock thrust his elbow into the stranger’s rib cage. This perhaps wasn’t the most clever move on his part, as Sherlock was almost immediately hit back by a fist nearly the size of his entire face. Upon impact Sherlock was knocked to the ground. A cloud of warm dust stung at his eyes, but luckily the tape prevented any from entering the detective’s mouth.

As if that were not enough, Sherlock was then kicked square in his face twice before being yanked upright again. Without a word the group took Sherlock by his arms again and dragged him inside the closest building.

-x-

The interior was a bit of a dump, to be perfectly honest. There was little furniture aside from a few chairs and some sad, half-destroyed tables, and all light available came from broken windows and cracks around door frames that led outside. One of the kidnappers pulled away an embroidered rug that lined half the floor to reveal a large tile in the ground. This was then lifted up, exposing a hidden passageway in the form of a long, winding staircase.

The basement floor looked very much the same as the first, except that it had actual electric lighting that hummed from overhead and gave the room an eerie dull glow. Beyond the first room was a tight hallway with several other doors branching off.

Sherlock was taken into the room farthest from the exit, which contained a metal support beam that Sherlock suspected he would be chained to by the end of the day. Sure enough, the duct tape around his wrists was cut off and exchanged for a pair of handcuffs that held his arms behind the beam.

The consulting detective’s eyes had just begun to glaze over with boredom when the tape over his mouth was ripped off and he was socked once in the face, the pain snapping him back into the moment. This time the offender was wearing a pair of hard gloves. A thin trickle of blood ran down Sherlock’s nose and he squinted back at the man opposite him.

“Say cheese, pretty boy,” the man spoke in English for the first time, lifting up his mobile and snapping a photo.

He and the other thugs then left Sherlock on his own, and the heavy door slammed shut behind them. All at once the room became entirely encompassed by silence. So much so that the sound of Sherlock’s own heartbeat and breathing sounded at least ten times louder than normal.

His face stung all over. Of course, it could always be worse, and it was that fact alone that seemed to give Sherlock whatever hope he had left. He wasn’t dead, nor did the man feel that his life were in any immediate threat. The conditions weren’t ideal, but he’d endured worse (i.e. a certain freezer in an Aberdeen casino). And most importantly:

As far as he knew, John was safe.

Perhaps worrying beyond all belief at the moment, but better that than stuck with Sherlock.


	3. Chapter 3

“Remember that thing I told you early this afternoon about subtlety?”

“Yes?”

“Well, astonishingly enough, that’s still in effect. That being said, I certainly hope you didn’t dress up like that Pierce Brosnan character you’re so fond of.”

John’s face flushed red. “What? N-No, of course not!” he lied. The doctor was currently seated towards the back of a small private jet on its way to Bulgaria, clad in the same suit that he was wearing the night before. As if he could feel Mycroft’s disapproval, John immediately removed the pair of dark shades he’d had on and shoved them into his carry-on bag. “And even if I did, don’t you think I’d be a bit more of a Daniel Craig?”

John heard a sigh on the other end before Mycroft changed the subject: “If you need to reach me for whatever reason please use this number. It is a cheap mobile that I had Anthea pick up for me and is, as far as we know, untapped. Do keep me updated on the situation and I will lend my assistance in whatever way that I can.”

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely.”

-x-

It was dark by the time that John arrived in Burgas, Bulgaria. From there he used a wad of foreign cash that Mycroft had sent with him to rent the cheapest vehicle he could find, which just so happened to be a motorcycle, and drove for an additional hour and a half before reaching the border.

Although none of the men from his flight had stuck around to ensure he got past the border alright, he showed his passport and all the paperwork as Mycroft instructed and sure enough, John was on Turkish soil by midnight. Exhausted, the man checked into the first hotel he came across and went straight to bed.

The following morning John awoke to the buzzing of his mobile atop his bedside table. Without opening his eyes the man reached over and hit a button to silence it. Mere seconds passed before the thing went off again. This time John didn’t budge. When the vibrating didn’t cease the doctor finally forced himself into an upright position and answered it.

"I’m up, I’m up," he yawned into the receiver.

“It’s about time!” Mycroft yelled back at him. “Do you realize how much time you’ve wasted sleeping in? This isn’t a vacation!”

"I know!" John moaned, pressing the mobile up to his ear with a shoulder as he threw on clothing.

“Oh, hang on, someone’s trying to reach me on my main line. Perhaps it’s our dear friends looking after Sherlock. Anyway, I’ll have to call you back.”

-x-

Sherlock had no way of being sure exactly how much time had passed since he was first confined in that room, but it had to have been nearly 24 hours by the time he was visited again. There were two men this time: the one who had hit him before and another that he didn’t recognize. The latter was talking into a mobile in English, and it wasn’t difficult for Sherlock to piece together that his brother was at the other end. Choosing to avoid eye contact with his enemies, Sherlock directed his attention towards the concrete floor while listening in on the conversation.

“Very well, Mr. Holmes,” one of the kidnappers was saying in a rough accent. “You want proof that your brother is alive and, for all intents and purposes, well? I give you proof.” He then approached Sherlock, placed the mobile onto speakerphone and held it out in front of Sherlock’s face. With his free hand the brute grabbed a fistful of Sherlock’s hair and yanked the detective’s head up by it. “Say hello to your beloved sibling,” the other man grunted.

Sherlock winced. “Hello… Mycroft…”

“Sherlock Holmes! Do you have an idea how worried we’ve all been about you?”

Forgetting how badly swollen his one eye was, Sherlock attempted to roll them. The resulting pain proved hardly worth it. “If by ‘we’ you actually mean ‘you’—”

“That was a rhetorical question, Sherlock. But I am legitimately concerned with how often you seem to find yourself in these situations. What’s the count now? Seven times, I recall?”

“Oh, don’t try act all high and mighty, as if you had nothing to do with - wait, seven? Are you sure?”

“I am sorry about this, you know. If there were anything I could do, any sort of ransom they wanted…”

“Are you absolutely sure seven? I think I would’ve remembered if it were seven.”

Mycroft went on without answering him: “But I doubt I have much time left, so do tell me, how are you holding up? I’ve requested that a doctor be kept on hand in case they get… carried away, but I’ve seen the photographs and have half a mind to send one in myself.”

Sherlock’s eyes lit up. His bottom lip quivered slightly. Did Mycroft send John after him? Is that what he was trying to say when he mentioned a doctor? Sherlock was in the midst of thinking up a way to ask this without giving himself away when the second man said something angrily in Turkish along the lines of not getting paid enough to give out free phone calls.

The man holding the mobile nodded and stood up straight. “Y’hear that? Time’s up.”

“Wait,” Sherlock tried. “Wait. Please.” He was ignored and the man began to turn away. Sherlock took a deep breath. “Istanbul!” he cried out. “There’s a good chance that I’m in Istanbul, or if not that then some other large Turkish city, near a high-traffic shopping center and within a quarter mile of a mosque!”

A flash of anger flushed over the kidnappers face and he shut the mobile with one hand. His companion stomped over to where Sherlock was bound and whipped out a knife. He touched the blade against Sherlock’s throat and leaned in. “Why did you tell him that?” he grunted. “Is someone coming for you?”

Sherlock stiffened. “I don’t know.” He struggled to keep his breathing regular as the weapon pressed closer into Sherlock’s neck, drawing a small bit of blood. “No. No, no one’s coming! I just thought, in theory, if he knew where to send someone…”

“Another slip-up like that and you might just lose a finger, or a tongue,” the man hissed. After the threat he dropped his hand and Sherlock let out a cough. He then instructed something in Turkish to his partner in a barely audible whisper just before hitting Sherlock over the head with the butt of his knife hard enough to knock him out.

-x-

John hadn’t made it far since his last conversation with Mycroft. To be more precise, he had made it as far as the lobby with his things packed before he realized that he hadn’t the slightest idea where to start looking for Sherlock. Turkey was a big place and he had little to nothing to go off of.

"Sherlock would know what to do, where to start looking," John scolded himself. "God, why couldn’t we just have switched places!"

Even after having checked out already, John decided to talk with some of the locals and see if they knew anything about Sherlock’s kidnappers that would help him. The doctor’s questioning led him to the hotel pool, where John was then temporarily distracted by a small huddle of bikini-clad tourists from different parts of Europe and Asia who had bought him a drink and were a little too eager to ‘help out.’

Not too long into this, John’s mobile went off again. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, pushing one of them off of his lap to sit up and answer it. “Mycroft?”

“Istanbul," Mycroft replied through the receiver.

"Sorry?"

“Sherlock suspects he’s in Istanbul.”

"You spoke with him?" asked John.

“We talked briefly. He wasn’t supposed to give anything away to me, and the fact that he tried to means he might not be there (or all in one piece) for long. But I hope you find the information useful.”

"Yes! Yes, that’s wonderful!" John stood up and hurried towards the pool gate to the dismay of his ‘helpers.’ "I mean, it’s not wonderful, but… but you know what I mean.”

“Mm. Quite. Also he mentioned being near a shopping center and within a quarter mile of a mosque.”

"I don’t think that narrows it down too much, but thanks a bunch!" After hanging up, John power walked his way across the parking lot. Upon reaching his new motorcycle the man secured his weapons case and the bag containing what little else he had packed into the back of the motorbike, put on his helmet and hopped on.

-x-

John was on the road for about another three hours before reaching Istanbul, which was actually pretty decent timing, considering he only had to stop and get directions once. After reaching the Turkish city the doctor stopped for lunch at a little restaurant full of foods he’d never heard of before, much less could pronounce.

While eating he looked over an oversized tourist map of the entire city, circling all of the mosques and clusters of large stores. Without Sherlock to guide him, John had to resort to the guess and check method, which took several hours longer than he expected it to. After checking out the fourth strip of coffee shops somewhat close to a mosque, the doctor did manage to pick up on the right trail.

John had attempted to draw Sherlock on a napkin from the restaurant and was showing that to nearly everyone he came across, but for the most part they seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. Finally an old woman wrapped in a dark shawl told him that she hadn’t seen Sherlock, but if he was taken somewhere in the city she had a good idea of where he might be found. After shoving an unknown quantity of Turkish money in the woman’s direction, she drew a route on John’s map, circling an unmarked building at the end of it.

"But you didn’t hear it from me," she warned.

John thanked the stranger and hopped back onto his motorcycle, following this new set of directions. It wasn’t all that far from where he just was, but he had to park his vehicle early, as the side road he was meant to follow was incredibly crowded with people. He abandoned the motorbike in a space behind a dumpster and pushed through the mob on foot. At one point a small child crashed into him and he thought he had just been pickpocketed, but by the time this occurred to him the suspect was already out of sight and so John didn’t bother to confirm the incident.

Turning a sharp corner, the man finally freed himself from the sea of locals. He walked down a dead end street, which led to the gate of what looked like an abandoned apartment complex with a tall brick wall surrounding it. It looked like the place the old woman had described to him.

Since the gate’s padlock had been suspiciously cut off for him, John snuck around to the back of the building and climbed over the wall, landing in a courtyard that was mostly dirt and dying trees. A couple feet away from him against the wall sat an open chest large enough to hold a body. John peered inside and, finding it empty, reached for the weapon in his jacket. (Mycroft had packed him a rather impressive arsenal filled with machine guns, sniper rifles, and pistols, but concerned that those would be a little too obvious to carry around, John had left all but two handguns and a grenade with the motorcycle and hoped for the best.)

John approached the back entrance with caution, but the wooden door was locked and covered by a metal gate. The man thought about shooting at the lock, but that wouldn’t help him with the barrier. Instead he put away his gun and took out the grenade. After activating it John set it down on the ground and made a mad dash in the opposite direction. He’d nearly made it to the end of the courtyard when the thing went off with an echoing boom, leaving the gate badly deformed.

Whoever was inside the building had definitely gotten the message. When the dust had cleared John heard angry shouting from the top floor. He pulled out both guns, one in each hand.

Above him, a man leaned out of a window with a rifle. John shot twice and the man fell away into the building before he could take aim. John then hurried back towards the door, which was now in pieces. Without putting either of the guns away John kicked the crumbled bits of wood and metal out of his path and stepped inside.

He could barely see anything. The only light source came from the damaged doorway, which streamed into the room in one large patch. John crept forward onto a Turkish rug lining the floor. One of the floor tiles was loose, and it moved slightly when he stood on it. John took another step, putting more pressure onto the tile. This time it slipped and he almost lost his footing. John scurried quickly off of the rug. He glanced around the room. Confirming that no one was about to come running around the corner at him, the man put one of his guns down and bent over, pulling the rug into a wrinkled mess off to the side. John picked up the weapon again and come back to where he had previously been standing. He kicked the loose tile aside, revealing the trapdoor.

Downstairs it was pitch black. John felt along the side of the wall with the same hand that held a gun until he found a wire, which he then followed back to a little box. He used his wrist to flick on a switch there. A row of dull fluorescent lights came to life overhead. The doctor followed them down an empty corridor. It was lined with several rooms, but each one was unlocked and entirely vacant. The last one he checked was larger than the others. A metal pole ran through the center of it. John looked down at the ground, now noticing dark stains dribbled in a line towards the beam. It was difficult to say for sure in such a dimly lit room, but John suspected the drips were blood. He swallowed, silently praying that they hadn’t belonged to Sherlock.

And then John swore he heard something from behind. Without hesitating John spun around and fired one of the guns, hitting the stranger directly in his knee. The other man crumpled to the ground with an angry wail.

“Where is he?” demanded John, gun raised towards the man’s head. When the man appeared to be refusing to talk John tried again: “Sherlock Holmes. Where is he?”

“You’re not a killer,” he finally said, smiling. His voice was deep with a heavy accent. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“I think you’ll find your buddies upstairs hold a rather different opinion on the matter.”

A devious look flashed upon the kidnapper’s face then. Despite the obvious pain that he must have been in while kneeling on his injury like that, he leaned forward, pressing the barrel of the gun up against his forehead. “Do it then. I dare you. Finish it.”

“Where is he?” John pressed yet again.

The man continued to sit in silence. Beginning to grow angry, John brought the gun lower. The man laughed, and then was almost immediately shot in his left shoulder. What once was mocking laughter quickly turned to a howl.

“Strike one.” John moved his arm over, now aiming to the man’s right. “Where is he?” The man’s lip trembled, but still he chose to spit at John rather than give up Sherlock’s new location. The gun fired a second shot.

“Strike two.”

There was a loud gasp from the doorway. John’s head snapped up and he saw a second Turkish man standing there. This one was considerably young, probably only just out of his teenage years. He stood there wide-eyed for a moment, legs trembling, and the bolted back the way he’d come. John kicked his captive down onto his back (with yet another pain-filled wail) and jumped over him, dashing after the boy.

He was fast, and John probably wouldn’t have caught up with him if he hadn’t been shooting at his feet the entire time, alternating between guns in both hands. Finally, when they were in the midst of running through the dirt courtyard one of the bullets nicked the boy around his ankle. It probably only grazed him, but he toppled over like a ditz regardless. John came over him and, realizing one of his guns was out of ammo, tossed it aside. The other he steadied with both hands.

Frantically, the Turkish boy started pleading with John in a language he obviously didn’t understand a word of. “Where is he?” John demanded, unconvinced that he even understood what John was after in the first place.

John had all but given up on making sense of the kid before he suddenly cried out “I’ll take you! Please, I’ll take you!”

The doctor hesitated for a moment before lowering his weapon. He didn’t, however, change his position in any way that would make it easier for the Turkish boy to pick himself up from the ground.

“So,” John mused, “you do speak English.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock had been drugged. Having realized this moments before it happened did very little to prevent it, however, and the last thing Sherlock saw before slipping into unconsciousness was a couple of his captors frantically shouting to one another and beginning to untie him.

The world faded around him and as the clanks and Turkish yelling became muffled and eventually ceased altogether, Sherlock started to dream. Or perhaps he was merely accessing a memory, all but forgotten where it had been tucked away in his mind palace.

The building Sherlock grew up in as a child was a huge red house, cluttered with odds and ends left over from the various hobbies his mother tried and often failed to keep up with. It was plenty big enough for the four of them, and downright spacious when mother and father left on one of their frequent trips out of town and it was just Sherlock and Mycroft and possibly a nanny. It was settled in the country surrounded by acres of woods that the Holmeses also owned, with a paved driveway a mile long. The front lawn was a massive field of lush short grass, and the backyard was a combination miniature orchard and garden.

This was the place of which Sherlock was currently dreaming. Annoyingly enough, he was a very small size, with tiny, chubby, fumbling hands, and an eye level at about three feet. He was in his childhood bedroom just before dawn, curled up in bed with a stuffed octopus tucked under his chin. He knew a nanny would be coming to wake him up and get him dressed for school soon, since his parents were off climbing some mountain somewhere or whatever, and he was too young to be trusted on his own, apparently. Sherlock hated school because it was full of children who did not want to be there and acted as annoyingly as possible as a result, and adults who liked to yell at him for everything. (They were currently trying to “teach” Sherlock how to read, despite the fact that he had taught himself how to read three years ago with books from his father’s library.)

Mini-Sherlock pulled on a T-shirt, trousers, his least expensive pair of shoes, and a jacket. He took his school backpack (books and binders replaced with snacks, a bottle of water, a torch, a small scalpel, and several empty jam jars and petri dishes), and snuck outside without waking anyone or alerting any nannies. By the time the sun rose completely, he was at his favorite spot in the woods behind the house, where there was a small creek with a fallen tree acting as a bridge. Sherlock wasted a full half hour trapping interesting looking bugs and spiders and putting them in a jar, and then separating them into different jars because unfortunately some of the bugs and spiders were not friends and tried to eat each other. He spent even longer squatting on the bank of the creek, flipping over rocks and filling another jar with crawfish, and then his last jar with snails, tadpoles, and a single salamander.

Just as he was cursing himself for not thinking to bring a net so he could catch some minnows, Sherlock heard someone yelling his name. It sounded like Dennis, one of the chauffeurs who would take Sherlock to school every morning. Sherlock made sure to be extra still and quiet as Dennis searched the very edges of the woods for a good twenty minutes, occasionally shouting, “Master Holmes? Master Holmes, where are you? Sherlock? Sherlock!” The man stomped away while muttering about losing his job over this. Sherlock didn’t want Dennis to lose his job because Dennis was nice, but Sherlock didn’t want to go to school even more.

Sherlock was pretty hungry at this point, so he ate a small pack of crisps and some gummy bears he had put in his backpack. He took out the plain turkey sandwich that one of the cooks made for him to take to school for lunch and fed it to the birds and squirrels in tiny pieces. He heard a car pulling away from the house--Mycroft going to school?--and decided it was okay to keep adventuring again.

Sherlock was in the middle of putting leaf cuttings from various plants into petri dishes, being extra super careful not to cut himself with the scalpel, when a man approached him. He came from deeper within the woods, not from the direction of the house, so Sherlock knew instantly that he wasn’t one of his dad’s workers sent to find him.

“Hello,” Sherlock said, because that was the polite thing to do when meeting strangers.

“Hello,” the man said. “What are you doing?”

Sherlock had learned that when people asked what he was doing, they didn’t actually want him to tell them, because they always quickly changed the subject or lost interest and stopped listening to him. Instead of telling the truth, Sherlock said, “I’m getting friends and food for my pet fish,” which was a lie, but it was okay because it was only a small one. The stranger probably did not know that Sherlock had no pet fish, or that even if he did, they wouldn’t eat tree leaves and beetles anyway.

“Oh, really?” the man said. “That’s very nice of you.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock said, because that was the polite thing to do when people called you nice.

“I have a pet, too,” the man said. “Do you like dogs?”

“Not really,” Sherlock said. “They’re all slobbery and loud. I prefer cats.”

The man stared at him in silence for a moment. “Well that’s good, because my pet is a cat.”

“Oh, really?” Sherlock said disinterestedly. It was obvious from the state of the man’s shoe laces that he had never owned a cat, but it was very rude to point out other people’s lies.

“Yes, a small playful one, absolutely loves children,” the man said. “You would like him.”

Sherlock said nothing, while secretly thinking that he and the fictional cat would probably hate each other, actually.

“Only thing is, he ran away,” the man said. “I’m very upset about it. Do you think you could help me look for him?”

I’m in the middle of some very important science here, please go away, Sherlock wanted to say. “Sure,” he said, deciding to humor the crazy man looking for his stupid fictional cat. “Let me just let these bugs and things go first.” He didn’t know how long the stranger would want to keep him chasing after a nonexistent cat, after all, and he didn’t want his samples to be left unattended to suffocate and eat each other. He could always recapture them when he came back.

Sherlock left the now-empty jars and petri dishes because they were heavy, but took his backpack full of snacks, water bottle, torch, and scalpel, just in case he needed them. The man led Sherlock deeper into the woods and away from his house, farther than the six (nearly seven!) year old had ever gone before. Sherlock tried to memorize their entire path so he wouldn’t get lost, but it got difficult to remember so much information after almost ten minutes of walking.

“Where are we going?” Sherlock asked.

“I lost sight of my cat just over here,” the man said, pointing vaguely forward. “It’s just another five minute walk, I think.”

Sherlock stopped. “I don’t want to go that far.”

The man stopped too, and turned around to look at him. “Are you sure? It’s just a little ways away, and I’ll let you play with her when we find her. She’s very friendly. I also have candy...”

“You said your cat was a ‘him’ before. Not a ‘she.’”

The man looked startled. “What? Oh, well, I, what I meant was--”

“And anyway, you don’t even have a cat,” Sherlock said. “I know you don’t because your shoelaces are really old, and they have marks from where they’ve been used for several different pairs of shoes, but there is zero cat hair on them. I played with a stray cat once and even after I got rid of all the cat hair I could, my mum still knew because of my shoelaces.” Sherlock turned around and began walking back the way they came. “I have to go home now. Bye.”

Half a second later, the man had grabbed Sherlock around the middle and was sprinting away. Sherlock kicked and wiggled, yelling at the stranger to put him down and stop touching him this instant, because Sherlock hated people touching him, unless it was his mum and dad, or maybe Mycroft when he wasn’t being mean. Sherlock reached behind him, grabbed a tiny handful of hair, and ripped it out as hard as he could. The man yowled and shook Sherlock like a ragdoll until he was dizzy. Next thing he knew, Sherlock was being thrown over a tall fence, landing heavily on his front and badly skinning up his hands and knees.

A woman got out of a gold colored van parked a few metres away and threw a piece of carpet over the sharp fence toppers, allowing the man to climb over. Sherlock didn’t move because he didn’t know how to get back home anymore, far too short to jump the fence again, so he opened his mouth and screamed as loud as he could instead.

“Shut up,” the man said. “Shut up!”

Sherlock kept screaming. Another man who was much taller and had greying hair slammed open the driver’s side door of the van and shouted, “What the goddamn fuck is all this racket?”

Sherlock screamed even louder, determined to be heard somewhere. The grey haired man stomped over and put both hands over Sherlock’s mouth and nose, cutting off his air. The six year old clawed at the older man’s wrists and bit at his palms, now not only panicked about being touched but also the burning in his lungs. The woman and younger man were both yelling at the grey haired man to stop, but he didn’t, and Sherlock blacked out.

When Sherlock woke up again, the first thing he heard was the young man saying, “Oh thank God.”

Sherlock flinched away from him, curling into a ball. He was lying in the back of the gold van with the guy who approached him in the woods. The grey haired man was driving and smoking a cigarette, and the woman was in the passenger’s seat holding her nose and looking at him disapprovingly.

“Told you,” the grey haired man said.

“You could have killed him!” the younger man shouted. “And then where would we be?! Demanding a ransom without a hostage! And then we wouldn’t be wanted for kidnapping, we’d be wanted for murder! Fuck!”

“Chill out, Thomas,” the lady said. She looked back at the grey haired man. “Do you have to fucking do that in here? Crack a window, Jesus Christ.”

The grey haired man grinned with yellow stained teeth and waggled the cigarette in her face. “Why, you want a drag?”

“Get that fucking thing out of my face, Callum,” she snapped.

“Are you alright?” the young man apparently named Thomas asked Sherlock.

Sherlock stared at him in silent terror.

“Okay,” Thomas said. “We aren’t gonna hurt you, alright? Think of this as a sort of summer camp thing. You ever been to summer camp?”

Sherlock sniffled and pressed his back against the wall of the van, bringing his knees up to his chest. “You lied about your cat on purpose.”

In the front seat, Callum laughed so hard he choked on his cigarette smoke and nearly ran them off the road. “Oh, shit,” he wheezed. “Shit, that was great. You were right Tommy, the kid’s a fuckin’ genius.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Thomas bit back. “I can’t believe you strangled him. Bloody hell.”

“Smothered, technically.”

The lady plucked the grey haired man’s cigarette out of his hand and flicked it out her window. The rest of the drive was silent, aside from Thomas occasionally asking Sherlock if he was okay again, to which the six year old responded by squishing himself into a corner and turning his back.

Finally after what felt like ages, the adrenaline drained out of Sherlock’s tiny body and he no longer felt one step away from hysterical. “Where are we going?” he asked quietly.

“We’re going on a little trip,” Thomas said. “If all goes well, you’ll only be staying with us for a short while, and then we’ll give you back to your mummy, alright?”

“But where are we going?” Sherlock asked again.

The lady in the front turned around in her seat to glare at him and said, “That’s none of your fucking business, kid. Now shut up and take a nap or something. Before Cal decides to throttle a few more brain cells out of you.”

Sherlock clutched at his hair in horror. He knew his brain was what held all his knowledge and memories, and he didn’t want to lose any of that. Did passing out for lack of air really erase something he used to have in his head? Sherlock figured he would never know, seeing as if that were true, he had forgotten it completely by then. This thought and the threat of being choked again were what kept Sherlock from crying, even though he was more scared than he’d ever been before.

The six year old didn’t take a nap, though he closed his eyes and pretended to for the rest of the ride. Eventually the van pulled into a gravel driveway that wrapped around the back of a small wooden house that had lived through better days. When Sherlock looked out one of the windows, he could only see miles of empty fields with scattered trees and the occasional cow or barn. Thomas tried to lead Sherlock out of the van by his elbow, but the boy yelped and jerked away. Callum yelled at him again, and Sherlock burst into tears and scrambled outside as fast as he could. He refused to go into the house, though. Thomas tried to carry him, but he kicked and screamed and cried, and Callum had to heft the child under his arm like a football.

Sherlock caught a quick glimpse of a small living room with a couch and a television that was playing an old James Bond movie, a door that led to a kitchen, and another that led to a bathroom. There was an Asian woman in the kitchen doorway and a blonde man on the couch, both of whom were staring at him. Sherlock was brought into a small bedroom with a dresser, an empty closet, and a mattress on the floor. Callum dropped him and locked him in there alone, and Sherlock cried for a very long time before falling asleep.

He was awoken an unknown length of time later by the woman from the van. She opened the door just long enough to throw his backpack at him and say, “Here, since you seem to have saved us the trouble and brought your own dinner along with you. Might wanna ration it since you could be here a few days, and we aren’t goddamn babysitters.” She once again left and locked the door behind her.

Sherlock didn’t know what he would do if he escaped from the house. He figured he could pick a direction and walk (for a very, very long time) until he found a payphone and someone willing to lend him a few coins, and he really didn’t want to stay with his kidnappers for fear of starvation or more strangulation. So, Sherlock got up and began searching the closet, dresser, and all over the floor for something useful. He’d seen a man on the telly escape handcuffs with a paperclip, so he knew even a seemingly insignificant thing could save his life.

The investigation yielded only several staples (for holding down the carpet), a single muddy boot in the closet, and some kind of collectible card under the mattress. Sherlock didn’t know how he could use the boot or staples, but he put the card in his backpack, thinking of when a spider had crawled into a crack between his bathroom sink and the wall and he had to get a thin piece of cardboard to coax it out.

Time passed and Sherlock never got any closer to freedom. The fear that no one would come for him and he would eventually die in the gross old house with the mean people became more and more prominent in the back of the boy’s mind. Frightened and lonely, Sherlock curled up in a ball in a corner of the room, distrusting of the mattress that looked like it had ought to have been thrown out ages ago, and recited the periodic table of elements in his head to calm himself until he fell into a more restful slumber.

By the time Sherlock woke up again he felt stiff everywhere, particularly around his arms, which he slowly realized were hoisted up above his head. Sherlock strained to lift his bloodshot eyes. Sure enough, he was dangling an inch or so off the ground from a pair of handcuffs hung over a horizontal pole in some sort of… boiler room? But these weren’t tiny, childlike hands; rather, these were full-grown, adult Sherlock hands. And it was only at this point that Sherlock realized that the kidnapping he’d just been dreaming of had already come and gone many, many years ago. But his current situation was far from over.

Sherlock didn’t remember how he made it home the first time around. His parents must have been informed of his captivity and paid the ransom, because he was certain his younger self couldn’t possibly have escaped on his own. Or perhaps the police got involved and rescued him. Unfortunately, neither scenario seemed a likely outcome to him now.

Picturing the much younger version of himself, alone and afraid in that run-down house in the middle of nowhere, only made Sherlock feel worse. As if he had made some sort of promise to that boy that he would never let anything like this happen again and had now failed--and that failure twisted Sherlock’s stomach in a way that hurt even more than his untreated injuries, most of which had gone numb with exhaustion. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and, too weak to fight back tears any longer, broke down sobbing.


	5. Chapter 5

By this point the Turkish boy had led John to the outside of some sort of giant factory or warehouse. Unlike the last location, which had been surrounded by buildings and people, this place seemed to stand almost entirely alone in the middle of a desert-like terrain, save a single paved road, and several dispersed shacks and what John assumed was a gas station.

The guy said something to John that he didn't understand, but he assumed it must be along the lines of him being able to find Sherlock in there. John pointed towards the building with a hand that was still wielding his gun.

"Show me how to get inside," he instructed.

His companion's eyes widened and he began shaking his head frantically. Looking annoyed now, John prodded him in the back with his weapon and repeated his statement. When the Turkish boy continued to resist, John gave him a strong push. The boy stumbled backwards a foot or so, and then there was a snapping noise. Both men turned their heads to see three large Turks charge out of the building, each armed with their own, much larger gun. John glanced over his shoulder and saw two more who seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

John knew he was outnumbered and thought he'd try something new. Reaching out and grabbing the Turkish boy with his free arm, he pulled him closer and pressed his gun up against the boy's temple.

"Nobody move or the kid gets it!" he barked in his best soldier voice.

But there was a flaw in his scheme. The Turks clearly didn't care about their youngest member, and this was made very obvious when one of them fired his gun directly into the skull of John's hostage. John let out a gasp and let go, the boy's lifeless form crumpling to the ground in front of him.

Now John had two options: to fight back or give up. There was no way he could win the skirmish, but chose the former regardless, managing to fire a single shot into one man's arm just before something like a taser hit him in the back of his neck, sending at least 50,000 excruciating volts shooting down his spine. Dropping his gun, John let out an anguished wail and fell to his knees just in time for a second, third, and fourth shock - perhaps even more, but by this point the attacks all seemed to blur together and in almost no time at all became too much to bear, rendering him unconscious.

-x-

John came to as the result of an icy yet burning sensation in his lungs. He was suffocating. The man's eyes snapped open, but it didn't do anything to help. He realized that he was being held underwater and started panic, thrashing out against an unseen figure that held his shoulders down, his hands tightly bound behind his back.

At long last John was yanked back by his suit jacket collar. The man gasped and then immediately started to choke on the air that came flooding back into him. He was dripping wet and shivering. John darted his eyes around the room frantically. He must have been inside the warehouse now. It was a large, nearly empty space, not unlike a bus depot. The only things within its vastly spread apart walls were various tables and chairs with computers and a multitude of wires dispersed throughout the room. John was currently on his knees in front of some kind of giant wooden bucket, filled to the brim with dark and murky water.

"Who are you?" someone bellowed from above him.

John craned his neck up, just now noticing the figure that was looming over him. The man was tightly clutching what looked like a machine gun and had a wad of bandages knotted over his right arm, so it more than likely that this was the bloke John pierced just before being taken out. The other three were standing around him, and the fourth and final (as far as he knew) must have been who was holding onto him from behind.

"J-John," the doctor managed, his throat hoarse and still stinging profusely. "Doctor John... Watson..."

The man in front of him shifted his weight ever so slightly. "Did Mycroft Holmes send you?"

John hesitated. He remembered Mycroft repeating their threat concerning Sherlock’s limbs if they learned that the elder Holmes brother had deployed anyone. “Who?” John finally asked.

Unamused by his attempt to play dumb, the man gave a little nod to whoever was behind John. This second man immediately dunked John’s head back into the bucket. Now submerged in water again, John tried to cry out, but all he could manage were distressed gargles. This went on for several seconds longer, until John started to feel as if his lungs would burst, and then he was pulled out in a violent manner similar to before.

“I’m going to ask you again,” the injured man said sternly as he got onto one knee and looked John dead in the eye. “Did Mycroft Holmes send you?”

John took several sharp, uneven breaths, but didn’t respond to the question fast enough for the brute. The other man nodded again and John was just beginning to be pushed forward once more when he yelled out “Wait!” The guy held up a hand and John was stopped in place. “Yes,” John wheezed, already loathing himself for the betrayal. “M-Mycroft, he… he sent me…”

“Who else?”

John squinted up at the man. “What?”

“Who else did he send with you?”

“Nobody,” croaked John.

The man frowned at this. One of his companions said something to him in Turkish, and he responded. After the exchange he gave John’s captor yet another nod. John’s eyes widened in horror.

“Oh, no no no no no--”

But then came the inevitable splash and the doctor’s protests turned to gibberish underwater. This time when John was pulled out he was tossed aside carelessly, his face planting firmly into the cracked cement flooring. The one who had been behind him stood up now and came over to the others. They were speaking in Turkish again, but although John couldn’t understand them, he knew that they were arguing.

Glancing down at his legs, John was surprised to find that unlike his wrists, his ankles weren’t being suppressed by anything. Deciding to milk the opportunity for all he could, John tried to scramble to his feet, using his shoulders for support. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t make it much past propping himself up on his knees before one of them noticed and hoisted him up the rest of the way.

John was then dragged outside of the warehouse by two of the men, but he in no way made it easy for them to do so, what with all the shouting and squirming about. The men stopped just outside the building’s doors and had a quick conversation. Then one of them waited with a tight grasp on John while the other darted back inside, returning shortly with a roll of silver duct tape, which he ripped a strip off of with his teeth and slapped over John’s mouth. Satisfied with their efforts, the two of them proceeded to take John around the back and into another room, which was attached to the side of the warehouse and padlocked shut. It was considerably smaller than the main building but still fairly sizeable, and it was here that Sherlock and John were, in a manner of speaking, reunited.

Sherlock was half asleep when the three of them came in to join him. At first glance the detective was completely overjoyed to see John, a relieved smile starting to form across his face. But this quickly faded away again and into a look of pain as he realized what it meant. John was shoved forward and unceremoniously knocked onto the ground, which, unlike inside the warehouse, remained unpaved and was mostly covered in a sand-colored dirt.

Almost immediately upon impact John was then brought back up and his hands were cut free with a switchblade. Exactly like with Sherlock, the duct tape was then replaced by a pair of handcuffs that were strung over a fairly low-hanging bar, yanking John up from the ground only enough so that if he were to stand on his tip-toes he could just touch it. The strain on his arms was unpleasant to say the least, but it was nothing in comparison to the rush he got from finally laying eyes on his best friend again.

The two kidnappers left the vicinity, bolting the door shut again behind themselves and leaving Sherlock and John alone in the dimly lit room. The flatmates stared into each others eyes silently for a long time before Sherlock finally let out a tearful whisper: “John. Oh, John, you idiot. You big dumb idiot, what are you doing here?” The man’s voice was dry and raspy to the point where under virtually any other circumstance John wouldn’t have recognized it as his.

John’s response was muffled and really sounded more like a series of grunts than anything else.

Sherlock frowned back at him. “H-Hold on,” the detective told him. “This is only going to be as weird as you make it. Just… Just hold still, alright?”

Not that he had much of anywhere else to move to, John did his best to listen to Sherlock as the consulting detective used what very little strength he had left to reach his neck out nearer to John’s face. A look of severe confusion flashed across John’s eyes. Sherlock tried again, this time straining himself to try and get closer. John didn’t know what was going on, but he decided to give Sherlock the benefit of the doubt and bounced a little on his tip-toes in order to slide his hands over mere inches. Now when Sherlock leaned towards him he could actually reach John’s face, and for half a second John thought the other man was trying to kiss his cheek. He then realized that Sherlock was in the midst of getting a firm grip on the corner of the duct tape with his teeth. In one swift motion the detective jerked his head back, ripping the tape away from John’s face, and then proceeded to try and spit it out without using his hands.

“Sorry about that,” Sherlock said meekly as soon as it had fallen from his own face and onto the ground below. John pursed his lips together and didn’t say anything. “John?” Sherlock finally asked, starting to look concerned. “John, are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” John lied. “I… I came to rescue you.”

“I figured.” Beat. “Nice suit, by the way.”

John took a deep breath. “Thanks. I was wearing it the night you were… well…”

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded. “I remember.” More silence. “I was, however, being sarcastic.”

“Y-You don’t like it?”

“Oh, I do! I think it’s a very nice suit, but… Did you really think it was appropriate for a rescue operation in Turkey?” John looked away and Sherlock swallowed guiltily. “No, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean it like that. I’m flattered that you came, I just… I just wish you weren’t caught up in the middle of this. It’s hard enough fretting on my own behalf.”

“No. I’m sorry. I really thought I stood a chance,” John sighed defeatedly. “And I let you down. Now they know Mycroft sent me, which was the exact opposite of what I was supposed to do. Now… Now whatever happens is going to be on my hands.”

There wasn’t much more that could be said and not make either party feel worse about the whole ordeal, so from that point on Sherlock and John mostly hung in silence. The sun started to set outside, gradually darkening the room. 

At long last there was a clicking noise coming from the padlock outside the door. Sherlock and John lifted their weary heads towards the sound. The door swung open moments later to reveal two of the Turks. They were mid-conversation. One had a large curved knife in his hand and the other was carrying a container a bit bigger than a ring box. The man gave it to the one with the knife, patted him on the shoulder, and then left, shutting the door behind himself.

Sherlock stiffened. John hadn’t a clue what was going on, but Sherlock had caught just enough of their conversation to know exactly what was about to happen to him. Evidently they weren’t kidding about the chopping off of body parts, and based on what he’d just heard, they intended to start with an ear. The box, he assumed, was to send it back to Mycroft as a sick present and clear warning about any further screwups on his part.

“John, don’t look,” Sherlock ordered his friend.

“Wh-Why not?” asked John.

“Turn away.”

The man came closer to Sherlock with a crooked grin, perhaps amused by the fact that Sherlock had pieced together what he was up to before had had even begun to do it yet.

“NOW!” Sherlock barked, looking furious and trying to no avail to dig his heels into the ground and lean away from his would-be mutilator.

Only just starting to catch on himself, John started to panic. Without so much as a second thought the ex-army doctor leaned back, using this momentum to swing forward. At the same time he pulled down against his bonds and wrapped his legs around the stranger’s neck, squeezing his upper thighs together with as much strength as he could manage. The Turkish man let out a surprised grunt and drove the knife into John’s leg. Letting out a wail, John only squeezed tighter. The man tried to pull his knife out again for a second attack, but for better or for worse it was stuck in there fairly good and he gave up in favor of attempting to pry John off of himself. In another matter of seconds the man seemed to go limp and John released him, falling back into his starting position. His victim fell over.

“Holy SHIT!” Sherlock wheezed, eyes wide and heart racing.

Panting heavily, John leaned his head back and tightly shut his eyes, his face contorting in response to the searing pain in his leg, dagger still protruding from the limb.

Sherlock remained completely stunned. “You just did that. You actually just did that!”

“You’re... welcome...” his flatmate rasped.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock’s mind was whirling. He frantically darted his eyes back and forth across the room, desperate to deduce something that might help them out of their current predicament.

“Okay,” John wheezed, “okay, let’s just… let’s just… examine the situation… okay…” He squeezed his eyes shut again, took a deep breath, exhaled and continued: “We’ve incapacitated… a bad guy… and, uh… as a bonus… now… now we have a… a knife!” John immediately winced upon finishing his sentence and chewed down hard on his lower lip.

“Yes, but see, the problem is that it is currently stuck in your leg,” Sherlock pointed out, trying not to sound as panicked as he actually was in that moment. “Not to mention we’re still rather secured to this spot without use of our hands. And furthermore, as if things couldn’t get worse, eventually that man is going to come back around, or his buddies are going to show up looking for him. Either scenario ends with you dead and me getting carved up like Vincent van Gogh!”

“Alternatively… I might just bleed out… first…”

“Not helping.”

“Sorry.”

What was the most frustrating to Sherlock was that with a single glance he knew everything there was to know about the room - approximate year that it was constructed, initial use, materials used in the walls and abandoned machinery - and yet not a bit of this information told him how to get out of it. Not from his current position, anyway.

And that was when the consulting detective had an idea. It was sort of a last resort idea, and he wasn’t even sure if he could pull it off, but by that point he was running out of options and to be perfectly honest, he’d suffered a lot worse. Not to mention he was unsure about exactly how long John had before he’d absolutely need to be taken to a hospital, which was something he seriously doubted was on the agenda if Sherlock wasn’t the one to take him there.

The metal bar was close enough to where Sherlock’s hands were dangling in their cuffs so that his wrist touched up against it. Sherlock held his breath and winced in pain as he managed to slide his hand around so that now his palm was facing up. Pressing his right thumb tightly around the bar, the detective began to bend his hand back, pulling his thumb in the wrong direction.

“Wh… What are you… doing?” John asked, looking as startled as he could for the time being, which wasn’t saying much.

Sherlock promptly shushed him and proceeded to put all of the strength he had left to snapping his thumb back. After over a full minute of this Sherlock was at the point where he was about to start crying again, but he didn’t give up and eventually felt his thumb dislocate. Gasping at the pain, Sherlock started to wiggle his arm around, managing to squeeze it through the handcuff, although cutting up his wrist quite a lot in the process. As soon as his right arm was free, the weight that was taken off of that side sent the rest of the handcuffs sliding off the end of the bar and Sherlock came toppling onto the floor halfway on top of the man who was still unconscious. He rolled off of him and had the bad luck of hitting his wounded hand, getting dirt into its sliced wrist.

“Okay, we’re even now,” Sherlock coughed, scrambling to his feet and clutching one hand tightly with the other, which still had the handcuffs dangling off of it.

“Good thinking,” John complimented him. The doctor was starting to look a tad pale, which only worried Sherlock further.

After glancing around the boiler room once more, Sherlock knelt down beside and the man John had taken out and felt around his pockets with his hand that was still in mint condition. His search wielded nothing more than a mobile and wallet, which he relocated to his own back pocket before starting to look around the room behind where he had been dangling. Most of this section of the room had been very difficult to get a good look at without straining his neck. Sherlock coughed again and had to lean up against a metal tank for a moment, shutting his eyes. He wasn’t used to his body being this weak, as he had only been force fed twice in the entirety of the time he spent in Turkey and barely had a chance to move around during that time span.

Once he felt ready to push himself onward, Sherlock blinked a couple times and spotted a loose nail protruding from one of the metal parts. It was this point that it occurred to Sherlock that he probably ought to have damaged his left hand instead, because when he tried picking it up with his right, the pain was too much and he couldn’t get a firm enough grip on the nail to twist it out the rest of the way. Sherlock switched hands and managed to retrieve it. He then dropped it into his right again, failed to get a good enough grip to pick the lock on his remaining cuff, and accidentally dropped the thing. Sighing frustratedly, Sherlock bent over and took the nail up again with his left hand and he brought it over to John, standing on top of the Turk’s rear end as if it were a stepping stool to undo his friend’s handcuffs.

It took a bit of concentration, especially since Sherlock was trying to do this with his non-dominant hand, but eventually he was able to pick the lock on the first of John’s handcuffs, which sent John falling backwards. Upon hitting the ground John let out a pain-filled howl and Sherlock instinctively dropped down and threw a hand over his mouth, just in case. Once John had forced himself quiet again, Sherlock removed John’s tie and hesitated before picking up the piece of duct tape from nearby.

“So sorry about this,” he muttered just as he slapped it back over John’s face. It was a tad dirty and didn’t stick as well as before, but it was better than nothing. John wasn’t happy about this, but he told himself that Sherlock knew what he was doing and let him get away with it for the time being. Sherlock then struggled to remove a shirt from the Turk. Once he’d managed to retrieve the article of clothing, he set it down beside John’s tie. Crouching down again, the detective took a deep breath and then slowly pulled the knife out from John.

The duct tape served its purpose in muffling John’s anguished shrieks, and he dug his fingers into Sherlock’s knee, trying to stop himself from thrashing around as much as he was. When the knife was completely removed Sherlock tossed it behind himself and got to work on wrapping the shirt around John’s thigh in an attempt to soak up as much blood as possible, which was now oozing out of him. Sherlock finished securing the makeshift band-aid off with John’s tie, which he pulled at tightly and then knotting into place.

Sherlock crawled back to John's side and removed the duct tape from his face, this time using his left hand. “How are you feeling?” he asked softly.

“I’ve had better days,” John admitted, his eyes watering only slightly.

“Do… Do you think you can stand?”

Sherlock offered a hand out to John, who accepted it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. John let go and tried to take a couple of wobbly steps around the room. He had a limp that brought back bad memories of his days immediately following his return from the war, but otherwise he was able to ignore the pain enough to continue moving around.

“I’ve treated worse,” John told a rather unconvinced Sherlock.

Once John had Sherlock completely convinced that he wasn’t about to keel over and they'd finished removing both of their cuffs, Sherlock went to have a look around for a way out. He pressed his hands up against the door thoughtfully. Behind him, John confiscated a machine gun off of the Turkish man and wiped the curved knife off on the bloke's trousers before claiming it as his own.

“No good,” Sherlock muttered half to himself. He crouched down in front of the door and felt along its edges. Suddenly he heard voices on the other side of it. Sherlock straightened.

“Get behind me,” John told him. “Now.”

Swallowing, Sherlock obeyed John’s order and quickly backed up behind the other man. John handed the knife to Sherlock, who took it, although he wasn’t sure exactly what his flatmate expected him to do with it at that point in time. The two of them stood there in a tense silence and listened to the padlock being fidgeted with. Not too long afterwards a metal door creaked open and John let loose with his new machine gun, sending a wave of bullets into its unsuspecting victims just outside the room. Sherlock jumped in place at the start of ambush. Once he was finished, John lifted the gun up a bit and they waited through several seconds of the aftermath with bated breaths.

Once Sherlock had deemed it safe enough to proceed, he took several cautious steps out from behind John and approached the doorway. Sure enough, two men were lying there, presumably both dead.

Sherlock rubbed a hand against his cheek as he surveyed the corpses, bullet holes covering their bodies. Small pools of blood littered the dirt-covered ground, almost invisible from the time of night. “Good shot,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper.

John smirked somewhat. “I love this thing. Barely even had to aim.”

“You seem disturbingly relaxed about having just done that,” Sherlock pointed out in a baritone voice.

“What, that? That was nothing. A lot of people had to die before I could get to you, Sherlock. I hope you realize that.”

Sherlock met John’s eyes and a shiver ran down his spine upon the realization that he probably wasn’t joking about that tidbit of information. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

Sherlock had spent days thinking he would never make it out of that room alive, and finally walking out of it with John at his side was almost a surreal experience. The ordeal wasn’t over just yet, but at least now it was beginning to look as if he stood a chance. Now that John was here.

Sherlock had to admit he’d rather underestimated John in the past, if their escape was anything to go off of. Seeing him standing there all alert with his brows furrowed, ignoring his injury, wielding a machine gun and dressed in an expensive suit, albeit now wet and stained with dirt and blood… It was a little intimidating. Frightening, even, but he certainly could pull of the James Bond look.

“How many more do you think there are?” Sherlock asked his friend.

“I only ever saw the five of them, so if we’re lucky just two more.”

Sherlock nodded slowly. “If that’s true then we might be an even match, except for our… disabilities.”

“Well. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

The two of them weren’t sure if the others had heard anything that went down between their men and Sherlock and John, but just in case, they kept close and skirted around the outer wall of the warehouse. Sherlock peeked through a broken window beside the back door and ducked out of sight.

“They’ve got friends,” he whispered to John. “There are six of them in there and I’m fairly certain they’re all armed. Luckily they don’t appear aware of what’s happened to their buddies, but we’ve still got only one gun and… well… this.” Sherlock waved the blade out in front of himself as if unimpressed by it. “Anyway. I say we make a run for it. Maybe with any luck we can get far enough away before they notice we’re missing. How far do you think you can go on that leg?”

John chewed at his lip in contemplation for a moment. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he smiled and threw a sidelong glance at Sherlock.

Sherlock frowned. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I think I’ve got a better idea.”

John led Sherlock to where he parked his motorcycle, which thankfully remained hidden beside a barely-standing shack across the road from the warehouse.

“You came in this?” Sherlock asked, genuinely surprised.

Without answering him, John punched in the code and unlatched his weapons case that was attached to the back of the bike. Sherlock looked on in a stunned silence as his companion felt through it for several seconds. He then stopped and pulled out an entire first compartment. This he handed off to Sherlock, who first set down the knife and then took the tray of weapons with his good hand. Hidden beneath it in the case was what looked like a homemade bomb.

Sherlock blinked. “I-Is that…?”

John nodded and took the thing out with one hand, taking the tray of weapons from Sherlock and putting it back with his other. He paused for a moment and took a handgun from it, which he gave to Sherlock. John shut the case and set the device down on top of it. He punched in a code that Sherlock noticed was the same the one to the case itself and calmly began adjusting a timer on the thing as if it were nothing more than an alarm clock. Sherlock was a little concerned that the man had only given it a mere fifteen seconds but didn’t say anything.

Finally satisfied with his work, John hopped onto the motorcycle and set the bomb down in his lap. He told Sherlock to get on behind him, and as the detective did so, John reached down and pulled out two things from a side compartment on the motorcycle: a pair of dark sunglasses and the keys to the vehicle. John put on the former, which only added to Sherlock's confusion because it was, in fact, night time. The keys he inserted into the motorcycle, which easily rumbled to life. Knowing that the sound had the possibility of alerting the kidnappers to their presence, John wasted no time in lurching forward towards the building. When they got close enough, he stopped right in front of it.

“Break the window,” John told Sherlock.

“W-What?”

“Jesus Christ.”

Without asking again, John confiscated the handgun he’d given Sherlock. He kicked the motorcycle stand down and got up to fire two shots into an already cracked window at the front of the warehouse. The Turkish men inside were most definitely aware of him by now, as they started to shoot back, but luckily there was still some distance and the wall between them. John ducked to the side as the window shattered and bits of glass rained down. He then snatched up the bomb from where he’d left it in his seat on the motorcycle and activated it with a single button. John launched the thing into the warehouse through the broken window. Sherlock stared back, mouth slightly ajar.

In seconds John was back on the motorcycle and whizzing away. The first of the men had started to pour out just then and fired several shots at them, which thankfully missed their mark. Sherlock clung tightly to John’s backside and threw a quick glance back over his shoulder just in time to see the bomb go off in the sort of fiery explosion you only expected to witness at the cinema. Chunks of the building flew into the air and rolled across the ground in every direction, in more than one case narrowly missing Sherlock and John as they sped away. Sherlock had to turn his head forward again and shut his eyes to shield himself against the heat from the blast that seemed to light up the entire sky.

-x-

Tayla worked in a small convenience store just outside of Istanbul, Turkey. She saw her fair share of travelers who came through, and it was all the same story. Photographers mostly, but often young adults who were venturing across the world in hopes of ‘finding themselves’ or some other bullshit. She asked them questions out of politeness as she rung up their cigarettes, postcards, and snacks for the road, but things were typically dull around those parts, especially in such a tedious occupation as hers.

The convenience store closed at eleven on week nights. Two workers covered the shift until then, but Tayla’s co-worker had left early with the third ‘family emergency’ that month, which typically was code for her sneaking out to spend the evening with a boyfriend of two years that was almost twice her age. But Tayla didn’t mind closing up shop by herself. They rarely conversed as it were, and Tayla liked the quiet she got after nine, which was, on most days, the latest customers seemed to come in.

Feet kicked up over the countertop in front of the cash box, Tayla was busy pouring over a celebrity teen gossip magazine that had been translated into Turkish when a bell to the store front went off, signifying guests. Tayla shifted her gaze over to her watch. A little more than fifteen minutes until closing time. She could handle dealing with one more customer before then.

It was another five minutes or so before whoever it was started to approach the check-out counter. Creasing the corner of her page, Tayla got to her feet, popped the bubble she’d just made with her gum, and set the magazine down on the stool behind her.

Still without bothering to look up and see who it was she was assisting, Tayla started to scan the barcodes of the oddities that were set down on the space in front of her: a box of dental floss, a little pack of needles, a bottle of alcohol, two sizeable ibuprofen bottles, a box of knock-off Disney themed band-aids…

Making a face, Tayla tilted her head up to see two middle-aged men smiling back at her who looked like they’d just come back from being used as a punching bag. She leaned further over the counter, looking behind them now, and noticed a trail of blood leading from the entrance of the convenience store down several of the aisles. Tayla gulped and finished what she was doing without a word in edgewise.

The hairs on the back of her neck standing upright, Tayla slid the debit card she was handed through the register with a shaking hand. “Photo ID?” Tayla asked in English, because they looked British. Possibly American.

Without saying anything the taller of the men held out a driver’s license that very clearly did not belong to either of them.

“T-Thank you, Mr. Avci,” the girl squeaked as she handed the card back to the man. Tayla put their purchased items into a plastic bag and gave them to the strangers. “H-H-Have a nice day…”

Once they were gone, Tayla sunk back onto her stool and debated whether she should call the police before or after closing shop.

-x-

Once they had picked up as many miscellaneous supplies as they thought might be useful until getting proper medical care, Sherlock and John plopped themselves down on one of the picnic-like tables out in front of the convenience store, which was currently being backlit by the store’s fluorescent lights shining through its glass sliding doors. Their motorcycle was parked and waiting nearby with considerably fewer scratches than they had themselves. They had also picked up a couple of burgers and drinks at a drive-through on the way over, and that had greatly improved their mood and helped them calm down after such an adrenaline rush - especially for Sherlock, who, up until that point, was basically half starved but did a rather impressive job of hiding it from John.

Taking out the needles, floss, alcohol, and some thick wads of bandages and setting it all down in front of himself, John carefully propped his injured leg up across the bench he was sitting on and started to undo the tie he had around it with a whimper in the back of his throat.

“Do you need any help with… stitching yourself back together?”

“I’m good,” John grunted.

Sherlock pulled the mobile he’d stolen from his back pocket and dialed a number. When he pressed the thing against his ear he put on his best fake smile. “Guess again,” he greeted the man at the other end. “Surprise.”

There was a long pause as Sherlock listened to Mycroft talking. “Yes, I was actually calling to let you know that I got your little… present,” he finally spoke up again. “We’re alright, no thanks to you and your political disputes. Hit a few rough patches but... Oh, no, no, I don’t think that will be necessary. Maybe just a clean-up crew... Oh, well now that you mention it, a luxury suite would be lovely while we wait for your carpool. I’ll text you coordinates and I trust you can take care of the rest.”

Sherlock started to put the mobile down, about to hang up, but then changed his mind and added one more comment, as if an afterthought: “You see, brother dearest, this is exactly the sort of thing I worry about when you force me to participate in social gatherings. Don’t take this the wrong way, but if it’s alright with you, I think I’ll skip out on the next of its kind.”

Chuckling to himself, Sherlock ended the call and slipped the mobile back into his pocket. Sherlock’s witty smile disappeared and he now glanced over at how John was faring.

“You okay over there?”

John poured another splash of alcohol over the open wound and went back to pulling tightly on the floss that he was currently using to sew up his knife wound. “Die another day,” he muttered. “Isn’t that the expression?”

“Hey… Thanks for getting me out of there,” Sherlock said sheepishly. “It’s been a long week, and… and I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. So thank you. For everything. You went… above and beyond all expectations as a flatmate.”

“Of course. I expect you would’ve done the same, were I in that position.”

Sherlock quietly wiped his right wrist with an alcohol pad and then took a roll of bandages from their packaging and started wrapping them around his wounded arm. As he and John tended to themselves in silence, for the first time in days Sherlock experienced a sensation that he didn’t quite have a name for, but realized was what he’d been missing more than anything else during all those miserable hours he’d spent chained up and not knowing just what cruel fate awaited him. It was a sort of peace that he felt when around John. Like he knew that no matter what happened next, no matter how bad things got… somehow it would all sort itself out in the end.

He didn’t like to talk about his childhood much, and the previously suppressed memory of his first kidnapping that had resurfaced was just one more reason why. And yet, the thought gradually occurred to Sherlock that perhaps, had he someone like John looking out for him all those years ago, things would’ve been much better.

“I’d do anything for you,” Sherlock finally responded. He had perhaps waited a tad too long since John’s last comment, because at first John looked a little confused as to the context of this. But John caught on quick enough and smiled at Sherlock just before turning his attention back to his leg.

“I know,” the doctor hummed.

And now it was Sherlock’s turn to smile and look away.


End file.
